The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1887-03-10
ALIvELY BLIZZARD.
A Old Settlers Misty Yarns About the
Cold Autumn Of 80.

''It was the great original blizzard
from the northwest, an tell yon it
beat 'em all. The wind blew the
water into waves and the cold froze
'em right thar. Every pond, creek and
river was found next day all C yered
with frozen waves as pretty as if they'd
been carved out that way. The day had
been very warm. The ground was COW
cred with snow, slusl and mud. About
noon the blizzard came, and in five
m 'nutes all the slush and mud was
frozen hard enough to sustain wagon.
ALI the little gullies in the sides of hills
were full of water, so great was the
thaw. In few minutes the blizzard
froze those running streams as solid as
rocks. Men were out at work that day
with their coats of, an more'n one
poor fellow was frozen stiff afore he
could get to the house. perhaps ahalf
mile away. Cattle, hogs and fowls
were frozen in their tracks, unable to
get out of the frozen mud and slush. A
light rain was falling when the blizzard
struck us, and it was suddenly convert
ed into little bullets.
ga misty sort of rain was fallin'
an my coat was wet. just as pulled
it from my back the blast of wind took
hold of i'll was standin' on top of a
wagon-an' swept it out O. my hands.
What dye suppose happened thenP
Why, sir, before that coat struck the
ground it froze stiff an went sailin'
over the ground like cartwheel, first
strikin' on the collar an then on the
tails. I never saw that coat again, but
I heard of one like it bein' picked up
down in Southern Indiana.
Il remember hearing about a man
from Pike County who was going home
from court. He was horseback. About
eleven o'clock he reached the Illinois
river, and, the ferryman being little
slow and his horse good swimmer, he
decided to ge right across without wait
ing. His horse had gone only about
twenty feet when the blizzard struck
'em. Twenty feet more, and there was
so much ice in the river thath he decided
to turn back. He had all he could do
to get that horse back on the bank
afore the ice got SO thick he couldn' t
break it with his feet. In two hours
the ice on the river formed nine inches
thick.
"a neighbor O. mine had queer ex-
perience. He was butcherin' hogs that
day; and at noon went into dinner,
leaving good fire under the big kettle
and the water boiling under it. When
he went out after dinner the fire was
still burning brightly, but there was
two inches of ice on top of the water in
the kettle. They broke hole through
with ahatchet an my neighbor reached
his hand down in there an got it scald-
ed in the water near the bottom of the
kettle.
''On the day o. the sudden freeze
Andy was driving three hundred or
four hundred hogs to St. Louis. an had
got down near Carlinville, Macoupin
County, when the blizzard lit onto 'em.
The men had to run off an leave their
hogs an their wagons, an two O. the
horses were frozen to death in their
tracks. The men managed to git into
Carlinville, several of 'em badly
frozen. The people there took good
care of 'em, an next day party
started out to look up the hogs.
Well, sir, the sight that met their
eyes was queer one. They found
them hogs all in pile in reg'lar pyr-
amid, and that pyramid was bout forty
feet high. You don't believe it? Well,
'twar as true as gospel. Andy told me
so himself, and he was truthful man.
You see, the hogs huddled together to
keep warm. Those on the outside
were cold and kept trying to get further
in, while those on the inside was
smotherin' an fghtin' for fresh air and
not knowin' how to get it. The result OF
all this was that the hogs in the middle
was forced up by the pressure from the
outside an below, and as more hogs
got their noses in under the outer edge
of the pyramid an kept rootin' to'rd
the center the porkers in the middle
kept risin' an risin' till the topmost
one was full forty feet from the
ground. Every hog in that drove was
in that ar pyramid, an every tarnal
one of 'em was frozen sitter n poker.
Chicago Herald.